Improving the attention span of elementary school children for physical education through an NAO robotics platform in developed countries

Abstract

Education today faces a powerful enemy: the lack of interest from students, who, even if attending class, find themselves distracted. This enemy has been in our schools for a long time, but it has never been as strong as it is now. Technology has made it strong; phone-bearing children have become its ally. This investigation intends to return technology to our side as educators by proposing the use of an assistive robot, proving that it attracts the attention of students and motivates them to enjoy Physical Education (PE) class, where children learn how to live a healthy life, avoiding diseases and conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and heart problems. To prove this, we measured the attention levels and motivation of the students in two primary school classes, one, a traditional class, and the other, a robot-assisted class. The data was analyzed from both engineering and psychological perspectives. This study concludes that the attention span of children improves, and their motivation increases as a result of using an NAO robot. Consequently, a robot-assisted PE class can decrease diabetes, obesity, and strengthen heart functions when the children learn how to live a healthy life effectively.